Anatomy help!

[acarolina]

Hi everyone! We are beginning our systems blocks with Cardiovascular/Pulm/Renal, which means Anatomy is also beginning...and Anatomy is notoriously hard at my school. I have a couple questions:

1. What are the best resources for learning Anatomy? I heard Acland videos are good, and Gray's and Netter's are good, but would you recommend watching Acland videos and then reading Gray's or Netter's before labs? Is Gray's better or Netter's? I heard Gray's has some good questions in the review book but Netter's images are better? I also want to make Anki cards to study from whichever textbook I end up using - does anyone know where I could find PDFs of the books to do image occlusion cards?

2. For Step 1, is FA Anatomy enough for questions that show up on the exam?

Thanks in advance, I would be so grateful for any help!

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[operaman]

1) All of those resources are fine. What matters is how much time and effort you put in to them. I would go with whatever your school recommends because that's where test questions will come from. Lecture handouts are especially good for this. You will definitely want a Netters; there are iPad apps that let you design quizzes and whatnot that many students will use.

2) My personal view is that a good anatomy strategy maximizes your efficiency in the lab. This is a combination of lectures, atlas, and review books. The order isn't that important. Review your planned dissection, the lectures, your atlas, and have a good sense of what you expect to see.

3) Utilize questions such as from BRS or other board review books, UMichigan's site, and whatever others you know of. Part of learning anatomy is learning how they test anatomy.

4) I always liked Rohen's atlas for labs because they use fixed cadaveric specimens that look similar to what you'll see on your practical exams. They're also all set up for quizzing yourself because the labels are done by numerals with an answer key in the corner of the page you can easily cover up.

5) Acland is a wonderful video atlas but a bit dry and hard to focus on for any length of time. It's a great way to solidify and review what you've learned from other sources.

6) Devote adequate time to the lab. Get a list of testable structures for each practical and make sure you can find all of them. Be sure you view structures from varying angles; professors love to flip things around and this can throw people off if you're expecting a certain orientation.

I wouldn't even worry about Step 1 anatomy at the moment. No, FA is not sufficient. The topic of anatomy is too broad and the number of exam questions too small. Your best bet is to learn everything well now and count on this foundational knowledge for those unpredictable anatomy questions. The FA anatomy is a nice review and probably all you will want to devote study time to down the road, but that's less about how comprehensive it is and more that your precious study time will be better invested in other areas when that time comes.

 

[theonlytycrane]

Your school course pack + Netter's for illustrations + Rohen's for real images (especially if you have a practical exam) + Complete Anatomy app for 3D visualization (worth the $25) + UMich questions + BRS/Gray's questions (if you have extra time). Cycle through this over and over and over and over...

 

[Gurby]

I muddled through first semester making image occlusion cards from pictures I found on google, but finally bit the bullet and bought the ebook version of Netters (bought it on Amazon so I have to use the kindle app to look at it). Such a good decision. The Netters images are just the best for figuring out how things fit together.

 

[Goro]

Hi everyone! We are beginning our systems blocks with Cardiovascular/Pulm/Renal, which means Anatomy is also beginning...and Anatomy is notoriously hard at my school. I have a couple questions:

1. What are the best resources for learning Anatomy? I heard Acland videos are good, and Gray's and Netter's are good, but would you recommend watching Acland videos and then reading Gray's or Netter's before labs? Is Gray's better or Netter's? I heard Gray's has some good questions in the review book but Netter's images are better? I also want to make Anki cards to study from whichever textbook I end up using - does anyone know where I could find PDFs of the books to do image occlusion cards?

2. For Step 1, is FA Anatomy enough for questions that show up on the exam?

Thanks in advance, I would be so grateful for any help!

Some SDNers have recommended: TeachMeAnatomy

 

[acarolina]

Your school course pack + Netter's for illustrations + Rohen's for real images (especially if you have a practical exam) + Complete Anatomy app for 3D visualization (worth the $25) + UMich questions + BRS/Gray's questions (if you have extra time). Cycle through this over and over and over and over...

Thank you so much! Would you think making my own Anki cards from Netter's and Rohen's is a good idea?

Edit - Found a PDF!

 

[acarolina]

1) All of those resources are fine. What matters is how much time and effort you put in to them. I would go with whatever your school recommends because that's where test questions will come from. Lecture handouts are especially good for this. You will definitely want a Netters; there are iPad apps that let you design quizzes and whatnot that many students will use.

2) My personal view is that a good anatomy strategy maximizes your efficiency in the lab. This is a combination of lectures, atlas, and review books. The order isn't that important. Review your planned dissection, the lectures, your atlas, and have a good sense of what you expect to see.

3) Utilize questions such as from BRS or other board review books, UMichigan's site, and whatever others you know of. Part of learning anatomy is learning how they test anatomy.

4) I always liked Rohen's atlas for labs because they use fixed cadaveric specimens that look similar to what you'll see on your practical exams. They're also all set up for quizzing yourself because the labels are done by numerals with an answer key in the corner of the page you can easily cover up.

5) Acland is a wonderful video atlas but a bit dry and hard to focus on for any length of time. It's a great way to solidify and review what you've learned from other sources.

6) Devote adequate time to the lab. Get a list of testable structures for each practical and make sure you can find all of them. Be sure you view structures from varying angles; professors love to flip things around and this can throw people off if you're expecting a certain orientation.

I wouldn't even worry about Step 1 anatomy at the moment. No, FA is not sufficient. The topic of anatomy is too broad and the number of exam questions too small. Your best bet is to learn everything well now and count on this foundational knowledge for those unpredictable anatomy questions. The FA anatomy is a nice review and probably all you will want to devote study time to down the road, but that's less about how comprehensive it is and more that your precious study time will be better invested in other areas when that time comes.

Thank you so much for your response! Rohen's is a great suggestion! I'm thinking maybe lecture --> Acland --> Read Netter's and Rohen's, Make Anki cards, Do Anki cards --> Lab dissection --> Practice questions? I want to be efficient but also build a good foundation that's comprehensive - would you think this is a good approach?

 

[operaman]

Thank you so much for your response! Rohen's is a great suggestion! I'm thinking maybe lecture --> Acland --> Read Netter's and Rohen's, Make Anki cards, Do Anki cards --> Lab dissection --> Practice questions? I want to be efficient but also build a good foundation that's comprehensive - would you think this is a good approach?

Absolutely. You'll change it up along the way as you find your personal preferences, but that sounds like a good start.

 

[acarolina]

Absolutely. You'll change it up along the way as you find your personal preferences, but that sounds like a good start.

Thank you thank you!

 

[Jojos]

all the resources you mentioned are very good. also consider rohens anatomy atlas which helps.
I have several friends that used aclands and were very happy. I used kenhub and lecturio and both worked great. kenhub being much more detail oriented and lecturio for general review (much quicker). For quick review also the BRS review books help.

Also anki image occlusion will be your friend.

as for the step FA should be enough. I used what i mentioned before for the few topics that i really needed to clean up.

 

[ortnakas]

Just out of curiosity-- what did you guys do first semester if you're just starting anatomy now?

(My curriculum did it first, and I know some programs spread it out over first year, but this is the first I've heard of a program starting it halfway through the year).

 

[acarolina]

Just out of curiosity-- what did you guys do first semester if you're just starting anatomy now?

(My curriculum did it first, and I know some programs spread it out over first year, but this is the first I've heard of a program starting it halfway through the year).

First we did Biochem (Block 1) and second we did Micro and Immuno (Block 2)!

 

[Treebeard]

Personally I didn't like any of the atlases or flashcards. My grades went way up when I started spending more time in the actual cadaver lab.

 

[Strider_91]

Just out of curiosity-- what did you guys do first semester if you're just starting anatomy now?

(My curriculum did it first, and I know some programs spread it out over first year, but this is the first I've heard of a program starting it halfway through the year).

My school also starts half way through the year when systems starts.

 

[RachelPowell]

For me Netter's works the best as far as pictures are concerned. Although Gray's have some topics which are not covered by Netter's when pictures are concerned.
Netter's speciality in images include - cut through muscles, dissections, overlapping and details for the each and every part of the body which helps us to understand origin, insertions, innervations, arterial and venous supplies with great ease. Nothing's better than Netter's yet.